Kuu's Collection
by Rutoh-Chan
Summary: Pictures, posters, trophies, home videos... everything a crazy and wealthy parent could want to remind him of his son's magnificence.  Kyoko is being allowed into the deepest sanctuary of his worship.  And she has a surprise of her own waiting there.


_I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I know it isn't chapter 16 of _Broken Slipper._ Please, enjoy it anyway._

* * *

Kyoko stared at the wall in front of her in shock. She had imagined something like this existed somewhere in the world. After all, Otou-san was offspring crazy. But still, to see it, to have been allowed into this practical sanctuary…

"What do you think?" Kuu asked as her mouth worked soundlessly. She looked over at him and was unsurprised to see his most powerful happy parent grin on his face.

"I- I- Otou-san, it's incredible!"

"Isn't it?" he gushed. "I've tried to keep just about everything that I could, and most of it is color coded-"

Kyoko ignored the rest of his explanation as she looked back to the two giant bookcases on the wall in front of her. They were separated by an expanse of wall covered in posters from movies, dramas, and model shoots. Of course the main subject was always Ren or Kuon. The bookcases themselves were almost completely full. The one on the left was stocked with dozens of albums while the one on the right held only a few albums and a shocking stash of video cassettes followed by DVD's as her eye traveled down the shelf.

"It's all of Kuon?" Kyoko asked in wonder, interrupting Kuu's diatribe. He nodded happily.

"I have just about every moment of his life recorded in some form or another from when he was just born until he was about three. Then it got a little harder to keep track of him. Security cameras can only cover so much space, and I ripped a lot of video from them. And of course as time went on he kept disappearing all over the place. I don't have as much from his teenage years. And for some reason I don't have very much from our trip to Kyoto when he was ten."

Kyoko blushed, but Kuu did not notice. Kuon had begged for her to not disclose their meeting so many years ago to his parents. She was still not sure why, but knowing that Otou-san was a little crazy, she had accepted this charge. Besides, it was their magical secret.

"It's alright," she reassured Kuu. "You said they were color coded?"

"Yes! The really light blue is all his baby stuff, until he's about three. Then he was much too mobile and opinionated to be a baby anymore, so I had to switch colors. Some of those early ones are more like scrapbooks with all his firsts recorded in them."

"Was he a good baby?"

"Of course!" Kuu expostulated. "He was the most amazing baby ever! And he was very smart. I think he scared his doctor with how quickly he developed. And he was just so darling…" Kyoko giggled at the look on Kuu's face and he grinned at her. "Laugh all you want. It was so amazing it was almost terrifying. We couldn't take him anywhere. Ladies would faint at his feet, only since I was carrying him it looked like they were fainting at my feet and Julie kept accusing me of flirting-"

Kyoko was laughing outright now, sure that Kuu was exaggerating. She had spent enough time with him by this point that she could recognize when he was teasing her with his overly dramatic acting skills.

"Otou-san!" she gasped as she tried to catch her breath. He patted her back carefully.

"Alright, it wasn't that bad. But he was cute, and I did have a few people try and steal him from me."

"And from Julie?"

"No," he admitted. "Never from Julie. I think they knew she would hunt them down and kill them in a painful fashion if they even thought about taking her son from her in her presence. Kuon was her most precious treasure."

"I can see that," Kyoko said with a warm smile. Kuu watched her happily, wondering how often his son was privileged to see this face. It had to have been at least part of Kuon's downfall.

"Well, my wife is an incredible woman. But onto the other colors. Grey is for school things, since they were boring to be at but there were a lot of them. Navy blue was extracurricular activities, anything that he did outside of school to improve himself. You missed the wall over there when we came in, but it has all the trophies and awards that he got," Kuu told her, pointing to the far right, past the bookcase.

"That… is a lot of awards," Kyoko whispered, awed. Kuu shrugged.

"He didn't always win first, but I'm still not convinced it wasn't because he let the other kids win." Kyoko shook her head, but did not argue. "Anyway, sunny yellow is family home time, and the dark red is family vacations. There aren't as many of those, especially later on."

His voice had taken on a wistful note and Kyoko placed her hand carefully on his arm. He shook his head, then looked down to smile at her.

"Are you alright?" she asked, always careful. Kuon and his parents tended to avoid talking about his "missing years" as Kyoko liked to call them. She was never sure if it was safe to bring them up. Time had brought an emotional reconciliation and reunion to the family, but Kyoko knew the guilt was still there. She could see it in his face every time Kuon talked about lost time and chances. She could feel it when she had long conversations with Julie about being a parent. And with Kuu, it was a dark aura that showed up at the most random intervals.

"I'm fine, Kyoko," he told her, stroking her head. She relaxed a little. This was another thing that she was getting used to. Comforting her family, and being comforted by them in turn. "You don't have to worry about me."

"So, red is family vacations?" Kuu accepted her escape, and switched back into explanation mode.

"Yes. Gold is anything to do with acting. The last few are mostly that color because they're all the clippings and things that Julie and I collected while he was Ren. There are a couple when he was much younger, but he doesn't like to count those times, so it's no use asking him about them."

"I see. And the black ones?" Kuu frowned.

"His girlfriends, or at least all the ones that I knew about. I think he eventually went through them so quickly, he stopped bothering to introduce Julie and I to them. But they're in those albums because all of Kuon's girlfriends get regulated to my black books."

Kyoko peeked up through her eyelashes.

"_All_ of them?" she asked in a small voice. Kuu smiled and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"All his _ex_-girlfriends," Kuu amended. "Besides, you aren't his girlfriend. Fiancées don't count."

Kyoko smiled bashfully, fidgeting with the ring on her left hand. She loved it dearly and was grateful that Kuon had been so conscientious when picking it out. It was intricate and expensive, but not a giant stone. She considered it elegant and fit for a poised and demure princess. She had had no power to reject it, or the man that had so tenderly offered it to her.

"All of them are in your black books?" she asked, trying to shift the subject. It still flustered her to think that she would be getting her happily ever after.

"Of course," Kuu responded breezily. "Firstly, they all left my son, which proved them to be blind to his magnificence. Second, he let them get away, which meant they weren't worth him chasing after."

He looked at Kyoko significantly during the last part, making her blush.

When her own feelings had become too much for her to hide, Kyoko had struck a deal with the president of LME and Lory had helped her escape back to Kyoto. He had agreed to help her as long as she had stayed in the industry and if she would expand her horizons. She would head down to Kyoto for a modeling job and then decide what to do from there. From what Yashiro had told her once she had been brought back, Ren had been furious with the president.

"President Takarada told him that if he wanted to be with you so badly, he could get off his lazy butt and find you himself," Yashiro had explained. "So, Ren had me look into where you had gone, then dropped all his jobs and came after you."

Lory had not covered Kyoko's tracks, and so it had been a small matter for Yashiro to find her. After her week long shoot and having tried drowning herself in work, Kyoko had visited the Fuwas briefly, and explain to them what had happened between her and their son. They were understanding, and apologized for Shotaro's behavior, and wished her the best in her work. Then she had gone to Corn's clearing to try and decide what she should do next. The modeling had gone well enough, but she was still not ready to face Ren again. He was haunting her, and she could not face the disappointment of his rejection.

Fortunately, Kuon had had other plans. When she had walked into her old play place looking for peace and answers, she had been shocked to see Ren there, waiting for her. And when he had taken off his baseball cap and revealed his blonde hair, she had become sufficiently confused to forget to run and instead demanded an explanation.

Once his past had been revealed, he told her that once he had found out that she had left Tokyo, he had immediately started looking for her. And once he found where she was, he had come down to see her to discover that her modeling job was already done. So he had guessed that she would visit her old memory, and had waited here for her arrival. Kyoko had broken down into tears, confused beyond reason, and demanded to know what on earth had possessed him to make him follow her.

Then he had kissed her and after a short, blunt, and occasionally wordless confession and conversation, Kyoko had accepted his feelings.

He was, after all, very persuasive.

"I still can't believe that he came," Kyoko whispered as Kuu watched her guilty recollection play out across her face.

"Yes you can," he refuted. "That's why you're engaged, isn't it?"

Kyoko smiled.

"Yes…"

"Are you ready?" he asked, surprising her with his genuine concern. She nodded firmly.

"I think we've waited long enough, and I'm ready for my happily ever after." Kuu chuckled.

"So you let Boss be in charge of the event," he teased. Kyoko straightened to her most prim posture.

"President Takarada is doing a us a very large favor," she scolded. Kuu waved her comment aside.

"He's a wonderful man," he conceded. "But he is insane."

"Kuon said that we should let him," Kyoko declared with a note of finality.

"Which makes me worry how much he has corrupted my son over the years," Kuu retorted.

Actually, it had surprised her too, that Kuon had consented to Lory's plan, since when the eccentric president had first suggested it Kuon had refused flat out. After sending Kyoko out of the room and having a surprisingly short and serious conversation, Kuon had returned to his bride-to-be with the information that Lory would take care of everything. Except the dress. That was Julie's job. Kyoko had trusted Kuon implicitly and had only learned later the reasons Kuon had capitulated. The biggest one was that the press would want to cover the event, and if Kuon wanted it to be everything Kyoko dreamed and not a mess because of the media, he would leave everything to Lory's expertise.

"Anyway," Kuu intervened, dragging her back to the present. "setting the crazy man aside - the other shelf is all of the videos that I've kept. They have stickers, and the color codes are the same. Again, there are fewer of them as time goes on. Except for the DVD's of Ren's work. We collected all of those. People kept telling me I needed to watch out, because my wife had been enchanted by a younger man and my days were numbered. It was… amusing, to say the least."

Kyoko giggled again.

"I don't think Julie is ever going to leave you, Otou-san. She's much to jealous to let anyone else come and try and take her place." Kuu chuckled.

"And she knows I'd hunt down any man that tried to take her from me," Kuu added.

"That too," Kyoko agreed. Seeing Kuu and Juliena together was like watching living magic. There was such an aura of happiness around them, it was almost impossible to believe they were real.

"So, where would you like to start?" Kuu asked, gesturing to the shelves. Kyoko's eyes grew wide.

"You'll show them to me?" Kuu laughed.

"Absolutely! They're meant to be shared. And I know you want to see his baby pictures," Kuu teased while poking her cheek. Kyoko swatted his hand away and smiled.

"Can we start at the beginning then?"

"Of course!" Kuu told her, and stepped up to the bookcase, grabbing the first baby blue book off the topmost shelf. Kyoko found herself envious of her father's height. She was discovering that having a fiance that was so much taller than she was frequently put her at his mercy. He needed to live in a space that could accommodate his excess centimeters. She needed to be able to reach the top shelf in the kitchen.

She was now trying to convince Kuon, his parents, and the president that she did not want a specially designed house as a wedding gift. She had a feeling she was being overborne behind her back. No one ever told her they were still making her the house, but no one said they were not working on it either.

Rich people…

Kuu waved Kyoko over to the wall and sat down under the posters. There were some pillows on the floor and Kyoko took a seat on one of these, eagerly arranging herself and watching as Kuu opened to book.

"Now this is his first few days at the hospital," Kuu explained as he revealed the first picture of a frazzled and exhausted Julie holding her new son with a weak smile on her face.

The adventure continued for a while before there was a knock at the door. Kuu and Kyoko missed it, very much engrossed at looking at the pictures, so Kuon poked his head in to see what was going on. He frowned when he saw the album open between his father and Kyoko.

"That's Julie's mother?" Kyoko asked.

"Yes, and the fact that she is smiling tells you how much of a wonder my son is. That woman hates just about everyone, and up until right then, I don't think she had ever given out a compliment in her life to anyone besides Julie. I had to fight her tooth and nail to get her to accept the fact that I was going to marry her daughter, whether she liked me or not."

"She sounds intimidating. But she's smiling here…"

"I walked in and she was calling me all kinds of names and demanding to see what sort of offspring I had forced on my wife. Forced. As if Julie hadn't wanted Kuon as much as I had. Julie had to practically shove me over to her and once I was that close I didn't have a good reason to not hand him over. So I did. She called me her favorite son-in-law twice while she was holding him."

"She let you take him back?" Kyoko asked, smiling.

"Oh no, Julie had to take him away from her. She couldn't deny Julie anything, after all. And once he was out of her arms I was a demon again, keeping her from her precious daughter and grandchild. But here, there's another picture with her holding him."

"Please tell me you haven't actually been showing her all of those pictures," Kuon demanded and he stepped in. Kyoko looked up and smiled, but Kuu watched Kyoko instead of his son. It was enchanting to see her bloom with joy every time that he walked into the room.

"Kuon! Otou-san was showing me your pictures." she told Kuon happily, standing to go and greet him. He smiled and pulled her into his arms, dropping a kiss on her forehead.

"Was he? And telling all sorts of embarrassing stories about me, I'll bet. I knew I shouldn't have left you alone with him." Kyoko smiled and shifted out of his arms, taking his hand instead.

"You don't trust me?" she asked, peering up at him with a look of mock hurt on her face. He used his free hand to tweak her nose.

"I don't trust him," Kuon told her as he turned to greet his father. Kuu had stood and was placing the album back in its place. He smiled back at his son and shrugged.

"It's no use being embarrassed, Kuon. Being brilliant and beautiful comes with a price."

"And having an crazy father doesn't help," Kuon grumbled. He looked over at Kyoko. "You have no idea how lucky you are, being adopted."

"I guess I did get to escape all of the more embarrassing moments," Kyoko admitted with a smile. "No one will ever have to look at silly pictures of all the things that I did."

"Actually," Kuu interrupted with a smile, "I have something to show you." He walked past the couple to the wall behind them, covered in a curtain. Kyoko had assumed that it covered a window, but was shocked when he pulled it back to reveal another shelf and a wall covered in posters from all of Kyoko's work, including a promotional picture of Bo and Bridge Rock. The shelf held only a few albums and a smattering of DVDs, but everything was color coated in the same way, except that Kyoko seemed to have some baby pink albums where Kuon's had been blue.

"Otou-san, how-"

"I got all of your work stuff from Lory, like I get most of the special stuff of Ren's. He also got me in contact with the Fuwas. They were more than happy to send me all of the pictures they had of you. It isn't as complete a collection, but I've been working on adding to it while you've been here. And since Kuon's shelf is almost full, I'll be using yours for these," he told Kyoko, pulling a pure white album from one of the bottom shelves. "I still have a little time left before I can actually use it," he added with a smirk. Kyoko flushed and Kuon rolled his eyes.

"You are not allowed to stalk either myself or my wife," Kuon told his father. Kuu waved the comment aside.

"She isn't your wife yet, but in any event I won't be stalking her. You'll be sending me pictures. Don't think the recording instincts won't kick in. My mother didn't have the means to do what I've done, but she was crazy about keeping pictures and stuff. I swore I never would, and look at me now."

Kuon grimaced as he took in the room. Then he sighed.

"I'll make sure to buy a camera," he told his father, dragging Kyoko towards the door. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to spend the rest of the day with my girl. And if you ever kidnap her again the day before we have to go back to work and steal my last bit of time with her, I now know where you keep this stuff."

Kuu pouted, but did not have a chance to respond before Kuon had shut the door. Kyoko looked up at him and smiled apologetically.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to run off. I know we haven't had much time together because of your mother and the dress shopping-" Kuon interrupted her with groan.

"I still can't decide if I'm glad I wasn't allowed to go. It took you _days._ Was it worth it?"

Kyoko thought back over the past week. The main purpose of their trip out here had actually been giving Julie an early start on finding Kyoko's dress. She had dragged Kyoko all over the city, and out of town as well, trying on dresses at every store she could think of. Kyoko had tried on hundreds of dresses. It took even longer than normal because Julie insisted on taking pictures of her in dozens of the dresses, though she failed to mention it had been at Kuu's request.

The store clerks had noticed Kyoko's obsession with the overly flouncy princess-skirts designs, but Julie had insisted that she try on a number of slim cut dresses as well. On their last day of shopping, Kyoko had finally been given an answer as to why.

"They aren't the right style," Julie had explained. "No, don't give me that look. I know you love your princesses and their dresses. But you're much shorter than Kuon, dear, and if you wear a skirt like that next to him, you'll end up looking at all your wedding pictures for the rest of your life and thinking you look like a white cupcake."

"A cupcake!" Kyoko despaired.

"Absolutely. You need a dress that makes you look taller, not wider. That's why I designed this one." Kyoko had loved the design, long and flowing with a perfectly modest cut and a touch of flair that only Julie could have added to make it perfect, but despaired at all the time they had wasted. Julie apologized for making her try on so many dresses that she would never have chosen, but she had needed to see Kyoko in different dresses to know what would be best for the girl.

Kyoko sighed as she remembered the feeling of relief and exhaustion she had felt once they left. Julie would come out to Japan before the wedding to have Kyoko fitted one last time, but Kyoko had had no objections to the design and they had finally returned home.

"I think you'll like it," she told Kuon, giving him a secretive smile. "I'm happy with it. But I am sorry that I havn't seen you since we got home. Julie was telling me it was going to take me forever to drag all your secrets and stories out of you when we got back, and Otou-san volunteered to tell me everything. Then I mentioned that he must keep pictures of you hidden away somewhere and he dragged me off. How did you find us?"

"Mom. I told her Dad had stolen you and she took pity on me, revealing his secret location at long last. She knows we won't have much time together once we get back to Japan. At least not before the wedding."

"I am sorry," Kyoko repeated, wrapping her arms around him. He shifted and stole a quick kiss.

"I know. And I shouldn't complain. I'm going to get you forever, and Mom and Dad are only going to get to see you when we find time to come out to the States. But still…" Kyoko giggled and turned her face up for another kiss. Kuon obliged her and everything seemed picture perfect.

*click*

Kuon pulled back and growled while Kyoko flushed.

"Dad!"

* * *

_I swear, Kuu and Julie are taking over my fanfic portion of my brain. Haven't you two stolen enough stage time yet! Bah!_

_I hope that you liked it. It was just a fun little thing that amused me to think about. Kuu probably does keep scary good records of his son's life, and I can see him adding Kyoko to the collection. Well, anyway, if you did like it, I'm glad.  
_


End file.
